Former Uvalde school district police chief Pete Arredondo was indicted on June 27. He turned himself in to Uvalde County Jail and was later released after making a $10,000 bond, according to the local Sheriff’s Office.
The former chief was indicted by a grand jury on 10 counts of felony child endangerment/abandonment over his role in the slow police response during the Robb Elementary School shooting in Texas on May 24, 2022. Nineteen children and two teachers died in the massacre.
According to reports by the Uvalde Leader-News and the San Antonio Express-News, former school officer Adrian Gonzales was also indicted on a number of similar charges, according to District Attorney Christina Mitchell.
NTD has contacted DA Mitchell and the Uvalde Sheriff’s Office for further information, but did not receive a reply before this article was published.
Former Chief Arredondo and former Officer Gonzales are the first officers to face criminal charges in one of the deadliest school shootings in U.S. history.
Mr. Gonzales was the first to enter the building after the shooting began, according to a report by Texas lawmakers, while Mr. Arredondo was the officer in charge of the operation.
On May 24, 2022, then 18-year-old Salvador Ramos opened fire in a fourth grade classroom at Robb Elementary School.
The gunman remained in the classroom for more than an hour before police intervened. Some officers are alleged to have waited in the hallway outside the classroom—even as the gunman could be heard firing a weapon inside.
In total, nearly 380 law enforcement officers attended the scene that day.
“Today is another day in an impossibly painful journey,” Texas State Rep. Joe Moody posted on X. “The hurt for them will never subside. Today, I pray that there is justice and some sense of closure for them in this process rather than prolonged suffering.”
The massacre led to Mr. Arredondo and several other officers losing their jobs three months after the shooting. It also led to separate investigations by the Department of Justice and state lawmakers, both of which established that law enforcement was slow to respond during the incident.
But whether this would lead to criminal charges for any of the officers had remained unclear as the Texas Rangers concluded their investigation, the findings of which were passed on to prosecutors.
It was not just law enforcement that came under scrutiny, however. District Attorney Mitchell’s office was sued by city officials in 2022 following accusations of a lack of transparency, as well as of withholding records related to the shooting.
Uvalde officials were also sued by several media outlets for failing to comply with public records requests.
According to a Texas House of Representatives investigative report from July, 2022, “at Robb Elementary, law enforcement responders failed to adhere to their active shooter training, and they failed to prioritize saving the lives of innocent victims over their own safety.”
Instead, they entered the school with weapons drawn but did not go inside the classroom where the shooting was taking place.
The multitude of officers attending the scene included state police, Uvalde police, school district officers, and U.S. Border Patrol agents.
A report released by the U.S. Justice Department in January outlined the “cascading failures of leadership” shown by police in waiting too long to confront the shooter. The report also detailed how officers acted with “no urgency” in establishing a command and control post, and how inaccurate information was communicated to grieving families.
“Chief Pete Arredondo of the UCISD Police Department directed officers at several points to delay making entry into classrooms 111/112 in favor of searching for keys and clearing other classrooms,” the report states.
The massacre led to the permanent closure of Robb Elementary School. The city broke ground on a new school in October 2023.
“As with the rest of the Uvalde community, we have only just learned about the grand jury decision regarding two indictments being issued,” the Uvalde School District Police Department told NTD in a statement. “We have no information separate from what is being reported by the media. As we have done and continue to do, we extend our sincerest sympathies to all who lost loved ones. Our hearts go out to everyone affected by this challenging situation.”
The Associated Press contributed to this article.
